Sunday, February 22, 2009

El Diablo #1-6

This is the type of DC story that got me into the DCU. 6 issues spent exploring a the next generation of a classic DC character, where there is still a role of some sort for the original. The new El Diablo is the jerk Chato Santanna, ganglord murderer with no real redeeming qualities. He's a jerk throughout the series, and the only reason he could be seen as the protagonist is that the curse of the El Diablo forces him to punish criminals. I liked the use of ghosts asking for vengeance, and the fact that only those deserving of vengeance are vulnerable to the weapons of El Diablo. There was a greater story involving an ancient goddess of caves and a terrible new villain named "Vorpal" but those weren't the best parts of the series. Jai Nitz did a nice job showing a grizzled cop's reaction and acceptance of Diablo's work. Diablo is just doing the work he wishes he could do in punishing the guilty. There were two issues with Diablo facing off against Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters that were pretty fun too. That team has enough skeletons in its closet that the face-off had some neat sequences where I could see how justified Diablo was in going after the heroes. The question now is, will we ever see this Diablo again? I'd say he's got a 25% chance of being used.

Phil Hester's art is as good as always. He seems to get put on these low-level projects too often. I'd love to see him teamed up with a writer I really enjoy.